Tutora Smashes Crowdfunding Target

by Startacus Admin

Tuition marketplace, Tutora, raises £150,000 in just four days

Towards the end of 2015 we featured an interview with Mark Hughes about his ambitious local tutor marketplace Tutora and since then his innovative platform has gone from strength to strength. In fact, the team has just made crowdfunding history, by becoming the first ever edtech Startup to reach their crowdfunding target on Crowdcube within just 4 days. The £150,000 which was raised with record speed gives the fledgling platform a post-money valuation of around £1.5M.

Tutora fulfills a very simple, yet highly valuable function - it matches parents looking for some extra lessons for their children, with the tutors who can deliver them.

The growth they have experienced to date is extremely impressive, having only launched in August they are already playing host to over 1,500 tutors from across many of the UK’s major cities. Tutora was created by Co-Founders Mark Hughes and Scott Woodley who both quit their day jobs in 2015 in order to pursue their startup with all of their energy.

“We’re delighted to have secured the investment in such a short period of time,” Co-Founder, Mark said. “It clearly validates both the success we have demonstrated to date, and the plans we have in place to further scale the business.”

Although based upon the well-known online marketplace model, Tutora is representative of a wider shift in this type of platform but offering a two-sided solution which holds significant benefits to both the provider and the purchaser- recent well-known examples of similar models include Uber and Airbnb.

“Finding a tutor can be a real pain for many parents,” said Scott. “Like similar business, we’re trying to use the technology available to allow people to make smarter, quicker decisions. To do that, you’ve got to focus entirely on user experience. In our case, allowing tutors and parents, or students, to find each other easily.”

“When Scott initially spoke to me, I looked at the current solutions available and soon realised they just weren’t fit for purpose. My role at the time involved analysing tech companies and I immediately knew that the industry was ripe for disruption.”